Hollywood's Most Typecast
The very definition of a great actor suggests somebody with an incredible range; a multitalented, chameleonesque personality who can slip seamlessly into another person's shoes. A great actor not only presents a character to the screen, but seems to become that character, an eerie and sometimes chilling possession by an alternate identity.
Then there are some actors who just play one role and call it a career, sometimes shaking it up a little bit by wearing a hat or a different coloured tie, maybe taking the character into space or lending his identity to an animated animal characature. These are Hollywood's typecast, the fact of whose very presence in any upcoming film serves to replace the need to actually see the film because you've seen it before.
Though they might have the ability to stretch their talents just a little further given the chance, those who fall into the typecast trap usually find their careers quickly stagnate like a frozen octopus, caught playing the same role for the rest of their natural lives, and then after they die, having their roles reprised badly by Steve Martin.
Following is the list of the worst victims working today. These are the actors whose range better resembles an Andy Warhol painting than an actual montage. These are Hollywood's most typecast.
The role: Ambiguous European master swordsman
Bloom, a young British actor for some reason named after an American state, first came to our screens as the wooden, androgynous, frighteningly attractive elf Legolas Greenleaf in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The role attracted the attention of millions of teenage girls and sexually confused teenage boys around the world, and soon enough he had casting agents shooting movie scripts at him from the barrel of a gatling gun. With a smirk and a smoldering glare, Bloom appeared in like ten epic movies in five years.
But there is an eerie hint of similarity between the characters that this sexy midget has brought to the big screen. After only a few films, sharp-eyed cinema patrons began to notice that the posters for all of Orlando's movies are practically interchangable:
Orlando Bloom is the go-to guy for the drawn-out historical war epic. If you're making a movie about a pubescent young boy driven by revenge to take up his father's sword and learn the ways of the warrior, ultimately leading an army to victory against all odds, and probably losing his virginity to some sexy broad in the process, then there's a pretty good chance that you're going to end up casting this guy. He's the master of that sort of arbitrary historical European accent that designates a character as belonging to The Past, and he's choreographed enough sword and longbow battles that he probably waves his arms around in his sleep like he's slashing orcs, or Arabs, or Arab orcs.
Branching out:
Well, Orlando has sort of done a couple of other things. He appeared briefly in Ridley Scott's gritty war drama Black Hawk Down, in which he furthered the plot by falling out of a goddamn helicopter. His only notable contemporary lead role is in the Cameron Crowe romantic comedy Elizabethtown, in which he awkwardly traded his chain mail for a business suit and still gave a performance like a medieval knight who woke up in 20th Century rural America.
His outrageous underacting vanished completely under the all-consuming shroud of Kirsten Dunst's outrageous overacting, and after that he shrank back to his comfort zone, doing a bunch of sequels to that pirate movie he was shoehorned-into in the first place, and after that, absolutely nothing else.
Oh, and apparently, he also did this:
But the entire population of the world can give a collective sigh of relief for the fact that they did not see this movie.
The role: Awkward, clumsy Jew with a heart of gold
Ben Stiller was poncing around doing absolutely nothing notable for a whole decade before shooting to superstardom in the classic comedy hit There's Something About Mary, in which he played a bumbling nice-guy with a crush who survives a long series of hilarious misfortunes before finally winning the girl over in the end. The formula proved so successful that Stiller went on to play a bumbling nice-guy with a crush who survives a long series of hilarious misfortunes before finally winning the girl in like seventy more movies, most of them alongside partner-in-crime Owen Wilson. And trust me, I'm getting to him later.
Ben Stiller exists as proof that the polite, nice-guy persona is ultimately the best way to win the hearts of the hottest women in the world. And by that I mean he's the last guy in the world to remain desperately clawing at the hope that that is true. In reality, people like Ben Stiller are almost unanimously regarded completely, incurably pathetic. In film after film, Stiller goes to increasingly wacky lengths to prove himself worthy of goddesses like Jennifer Aniston, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore, as Hollywood continually tries to sell us the idea that he is somehow the definitive icon of the perfect man. In his most recent outing The Heartbreak Kid he stars as an awkward, clumsy nice-guy who becomes disillusioned with his smoking-hot wife when he discovers to his horror that she loves sex. Ben Stiller doesn't want to bone you, he just wants to cuddle a lot and talk about his feelings.
Apparently somebody finds him endearing, because people have been flocking to the cinema to watch Ben Stiller being Ben Stiller about twice a year since he pioneered his archetype. He's one of those actors with whom everything he does feels like another goddamn Meet the Parents sequel.
Branching out:
Even Ben Stiller occasionally gets tired of being a weeping pussy, and every now and then he pens the script for a slapstick comedy and has himself cast as a self-centred jerk, a role he only takes on when Owen Wilson is absent.
Unfortunately, the egocentric dickhead Ben Stiller is even more unbearable than the awkward, nervous, friendly Ben Stiller, and although the man himself turns out to be a pretty decent comedy writer, we spend the entire duration of his cameo appearances screaming at him to get the hell off our screen.
Oh, and he also did this:
The role: Hot best friend who is secretly a bitch
Judy Greer is the petite, pointy-nosed and inexplicably hot supporting actress of dozens of forgettable romantic comedies. You probably haven't heard of her, but trust me, you know who she is - you know that movie you saw where the lead actress had a best friend who later stabbed her in the back and stole her boyfriend? That was Judy Greer.
Judy is one of those stock actors who lives to fulfil a specific role that better-known actresses can't be bothered with, and as such she's disappeared into the shadows behind some of the most richest, most beautiful and no doubt most intolerable women in Hollywood. And yet it's Greer who always winds up portraying the bitch.
Director Gary Winick describes Judy Greer as a "comedy genius". Her genius certainly does shine through in her large variety of fascinating roles such as Katherine Heigl's bitchy best friend, Jennifer Garner's bitchy best friend, Hugh Grant's bitchy best friend, Orlando Bloom's bitchy sister, Bryce Dallas Howard's bitchy sister, and a bitchy werewolf.
The moment some A-list actress comes out and introduces her best friend or sister, and points to Judy Greer, you already know what's going to happen. "Don't trust her, girlfriend!" you want to scream, "She will steal your man! You need to kick her to the curb!" Well, you might not put it that way, but you know what I mean.
Branching out:
It's somewhat of a pattern with Judy Greer that whenever she's not playing the bitchy best friend, she's taking her clothes off, as she did in Nicolas Cage's masturbation fantasy sequence in Adaptation. I tend to think that this is a great new direction for Ms Greer to take, and I certainly do hope to see the trend continue.
The role: Loveable foreign idiot, kung-fu expert
You have to feel sorry for Asian actors trying to break into the American film industry, where every conversation on the casting couch begins with the line "Okay, so you're a martial arts expert, and..."
Fair enough, though. Jackie Chan starred in something like one hundred movies in his native China before he came over to the States, and I'm pretty sure he did some variation of martial arts in every single one of them. Martial arts is just one of those things they do over there, as mundane as taking out the garbage once a week, but much to the confusion of the Chinese, the Americans go batshit for it.
So when Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx became crazy popular in America, Hollywood executives approached him with an awesome idea for a movie. Get this - idiot Asian cop teams up with idiot black cop in an American comedy about kung-fu in the hood! Rush Hour was a massive hit in the States and abroad, ensuring Jackie Chan's ultimate domination of world cinema.
So good, in fact, that America started to offer Chan more roles. Like Shanghai Noon, in which an idiot martial artist teams up with a cowboy in the Wild West. And The Medallion, in which an idiot martial artist teams up with an Interpol agent in England. And Shanghai Knights, in which an idiot martial artist teams up with a cowboy in England. And Around the World in 80 Days, an adaptation of the classic story which now stars an idiot martial artist for some reason. And The Tuxedo, in which an Asian guy teams up with an FBI agent and finds a high-tech tuxedo that grants him martial arts powers, which is just about the thing that Jackie Chan needs least in the entire world. And amidst all this are the Rush Hour sequels, in which the Chinese cop and the black cop go to China, and then, the next logical destination, France.
American Jackie Chan movies all follow the same formulaic premise - a fish-out-of-water story in which a bumbling Chinese guy finds himself in the company of Americans and needs their guidance if he is to survive in such an advanced, alien culture - interspersed with long, heavily choreographed wires-and-props martial arts sequences. It's an amusing idea, albeit horribly racist. But since Jet Li broke into the American market and became the serious martial artist, people have stopped laughing with Jackie Chan, and started laughing at him. Jackie Chan is to kung-fu as Will Smith is to rap music. But does he care? No way, man. He just goes right on throwing stupid poses. Haw haw haw, look at the silly Asian!
Branching out:
Jackie Chan used to be hardcore. We can't really blame him, it's hard to be truly intimidating when you're pushing sixty and look like a muppet. And I suppose he doesn't come from the most creative background (his real name, Chan Kong Sang, translates literally to "born in Hong Kong"). Back in the day, Chan starred alongside the likes of Bruce Lee, and looked like this:
So I guess you could say that Chan is just suffering from Robert DeNiro syndrome - outliving his badassery, and being reduced to horrible comedies that parody how much of a badass he no longer is.
The role: Slow-talking self-absorbed dickhead and fast-talking self-absorbed dickhead, respectively
Writing an Owen Wilson or Vince Vaughn comedy is a pretty simple affair. Just put them in a situation. Any situation. It doesn't really matter. Take one of them and make him a spy, or a cowboy, or a dodgeball world champion, or a cop, or a male model, or Santa's brother, and just watch the magic happen. The whole point of a Wilson or Vaughn comedy is their jackassery, and the comedy that is generated from their interactions with comparitively normal characters.
Unfortunately, release a few Owen Wilson movies a year and toss in a couple of Vince Vaughn films to boot, and our annual asshole quota starts to fill up. Sure, the characters aren't exactly the same, Wilson is more of a greasy, smarmy playboy type while Vaughn goes for the rapid-talking straight-up jerk persona. But give Wilson a couple of Red Bulls and an ironed shirt, and the distinction starts to blur. We start to wonder if either of them learned anything at the acting academy or whether they just bullied the other students into submission, gave a few wedgies and toilet-dunkings, and slept with their hot drama teachers in exchange for a diploma.
Often the token jackass role is used as a foil against a diametrically opposite character, who in both cases is usually Ben Stiller. But sometimes the filmmakers decide to go the opposite route and just partner up two assholes and hope for the best, as was the case with Wedding Crashers. But let's be honest - if you're making a movie about two horny blokes who crash strangers' weddings uninvited in order to sleep with as many bridesmaids as possible, there are only two men in Hollywood you can consider casting. Throw in Will Ferrell and you have a force of assholery so intense that you threaten the very fabric of the space/time continuum.
Branching out:
Before they settled into their comfortable pigeonholes, both Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn flirted with serious acting, even though their efforts usually lead to critical and box office catastrophe. Wilson did a bad war film:
And Vaughn attempted Hitchcock in a completely unnecessary Psycho remake:
...which seems something akin to Jerry Seinfeld playing the lead role in Hamlet.
Beyond that, though, the terrible twosome don't seem to have the chops to really extend themselves far beyond their stereotype, which makes you really wonder whether they might both just be massive dicks in real life.
Also, Owen Wilson did this:
The role: Timid, naive old geek
William H. Macy is one of those C-list celebrities who probably enjoys the freedom of going down to the shops once in a while without worrying about paparazzi. In fact, he would probably be flattered if some stranger tried to take his picture. Because really, let's be honest... who gives a shit about William H. Macy?
Oh, I'm sure he's a top guy. Probably the friendliest bloke in Hollywood. In America. But compared to the other Hollywood greats, he's like the kid in primary school who sat around reading by himself at lunch hour while you were chatting up hot teenage girls. He's just too average, too uninteresting, for the tabloids to take any notice. He's the real life Ned Flanders.
Casting agents pull out the Macy card whenever they need a middle-aged guy, usually in some position of power, who is also a complete pussy and doesn't really know what the hell he's doing. A Macy character is also usually some kind of con man, a plot device who uses his William H. Macyness to lure the main character into some kind of horrible situation. Because really, who couldn't trust William H. Macy? Just look at that face. He's fucking adorable.
He's also exactly the same character every single time. In his spare time, Macy works as an acting teacher, but to be honest there isn't a whole lot of skill in what he does. He just has to be his own jittery, nervous self, sit back and watch the plot unfold around his mundane normality. And yet the honest, everyman nature of his character is an essential component in a whole lot of films, a character who, admittedly, nobody does better than William H. Macy. He's whittled average down into a fine art. It's Macy whose polite insistance finally convinced Dr Grant to go back to Jurassic Park, and it's Macy who enabled Steve Buscimi and Peter Stormare to go on a murderous rampage, although it's safe to say neither of them really need much enabling.
Branching out:
He hasn't, really. Well, he did do that one sex scene in The Cooler, which was probably the point at which Macy lost his real-life virginity, and if not for that sweet, sweet naked Maria Bello, it's probably something that we'd all just like to forget about.
The role: Neo
And thus we reach the moment of truth. Keanu Reeves is an archetype without a subject. His portrayal of a cinderblock is second to none. You see Reeves cast in a movie whenever all the other actors are just too damned animated. I like to think that Keanu is secretly the greatest genius in America, because honestly, it takes a certain amount of skill to be that damn emotionless.
Keanu Reeves' big break into the Hollywood A-list was the legendary 1990s sci-fi film The Matrix, in which he played Neo, a sort of clueless everyman who held the key to the salvation of humanity. But even before then, Reeves was playing the Neo role in cult sci-fi classics such as Johnny Mnemonic, in which he played a sort of clueless everyman who held the key to the salvation of humanity. Since then, he's become a bit of a staple of the genre, starring in such films as Constantine, in which he plays a sort of clueless everyman who holds the key to the salvation of humanity.
Keanu Reeves is regarded by many to be possibly the worst actor working today. Probably because he doesn't act so much as look into the camera with a mildly confused, slightly irritated expression while he reads his lines off cue cards. I think it's an unfair accusation. There are just some films which require a lead actor who can mimic a chunk of driftwood without polluting the role with uneccesary expression. Keanu Reeves fills a vacuum in an industry filled with actors who are just too damn skillful. You could say that Reeves has a typecast character, but to do that, you would have to admit that he has a character.
The one true failing of the Neo archetype is the fact that Neo don't do romance. And yet they try to shoehorn Keanu into romantic comedies for no discernable reason. Watch Neo awkwardly stumble his way through a film like The Lake House like he's groping through a house in the midst of a blackout. Watch Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give while she tosses up between asshole Jack Nicholson and young, handsome Dr Neo, the third and preferable choice being lesbianism.
Branching out:
Keanu has tried his hand at more complicated roles. In fact, his breakthrough performance was as Ted Theodore Logan in the retro classic Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, the most emotive role Keanu Reeves has ever taken on.
After that, Reeves seems to have exhausted his entire acting potential, and has decided to spend the rest of his career taking a nap. Oh, and once he also played Buddha.
I am not fucking kidding.